Budget airline demand lacking

THERE would not be enough demand to support budget airline services at the Devonport Airport, a peak body’s CEO believes.

THERE would not be enough demand to support budget airline services at the Devonport Airport, a peak body’s CEO believes.

VISITOR NUMBERS THE KEY: The Devonport Airport. Picture: Meg Windram.

‘‘Every bit of advice I ever had from the carriers is it’s probably not realistic in the short term,’’ Tourism Industry Council Tasmania CEO Luke Martin said yesterday.

He said the region would do better to work to grow visitor numbers using existing services such as QantasLink and the Spirit of Tasmania ferries.

Devonport alderman Lynn Laycock wants the city council to urge the state government and TasPorts to talk to budget airlines about potential Devonport services.

A spokesperson said the government was ‘‘working closely with airlines to achieve our vision of growing Tasmania’s visitor numbers to one million a year by 2020’’.

‘‘We are always happy to talk about ideas for new markets and new opportunities.’’

But unless the demand was there to support a new network, Mr Martin said, a Devonport service would probably mean compromising existing budget airline services to Tasmania, at no net benefit to the state.

‘‘There’s only two carriers in terms of the discount market ... for Jetstar it would be a case of them taking services out of Launceston and putting them into Devonport – an hour apart.’’

He said if Tiger wanted another Tasmanian route, it would probably choose Launceston over Devonport.